Gregory Larsen, PhD
Wildlife biologist, conservationist, remote sensing specialist
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This website is a continuing work-in-progress. I hope to add more information with time, but always feel free to contact me by email if you have any questions!
A selfie while surveying vegetation plots at Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica in November 2023 using an Emlid Reach RS2 GNSS receiver.
About Me
About Me
My name is Greg, and I am a wildlife biologist, conservationist, remote sensing expert, and natural resource specialist. My career has taken me all over the world, into projects and field sites spanning from polar to tropical ecosystems and nearly every climate in between. Most recently I have been based in Alaska, where I briefly worked for the National Park Service in Juneau before joining the State of Alaska as a Natural Resource Specialist in 2025—though I remain involved in a variety of research projects and scientific collaborations in my spare time. I have worked professionally with wildlife since 2006, and I hold a PhD in Marine Science & Conservation from Duke University. I completed my PhD in 2022 with Duke's Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing lab, where I learned to fly drones for research (I've been a FAA-certified pilot since 2017 with > 1000 flights logged). After my PhD, I did a short postdoctoral fellowship with the Silman Lab at Wake Forest University, where I participated in some incredible research and conservation efforts in Peru and managed the lab's drone program for research and education. I completed my undergraduate studies in Biology at Middlebury College in 2010, and I consider myself a lifelong naturalist and tech nerd.
Research & Professional Interests
Research & Professional Interests
My work and expertise focus on the ways that we inform and exercise stewardship over spaces and the communities (people and ecosystems) that share them. As a scientist, I'm particularly interested in how wildlife use and occupy critical habitats to meet their needs and preferences, and my professional skills more broadly address the delicate process of balancing ecological integrity with human needs and uses. I enjoy using new technologies, especially in the fields of remote sensing and spatial analysis, to expand the ways that we observe and understand natural processes, and I've worked hard to build my career around the ethics of conservation and sustainability as I navigate the disciplines and institutions of science and policy. Given the times that we live in, I've been compelled frequently by circumstance to change my job, institution, location, and community—often against my preference—but it has given me a great appreciation for the diversity of challenges and solutions that arise from different combinations of ecosystems, cultures, and institutions around the world. I remain hopeful in the power of people to cooperatively achieve equitable, sustainable strategies for long-term coexistence with wildlife and wild spaces.
Adelie penguin colonies of Torgersen Island on January 14, 2020, photographed from a DJI Phantom 4 Pro. Drone activity took place under appropriate ACA permits. (c) Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing lab.
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